Merry Sniffmas
by twowritehands
Summary: Every artist draws inspiration from something meaningful, even for Christmas trees adorned with noses. Spencer recalls how he and Socko's pretty cousin "socialized" at a Christmas party … Spencer/OC


_Disclaimer: the iCarlies are not our creatures, just some of our favorites._

**A/N: Do you ever get the urge to make certain facts that you've completely fabricated for characters in other fics true in ALL the subsequent fics you write about them, even though the fics aren't sequels… and you do it? Just wondering if there are others out there. lol Anyhoo, h****ere's a little Christmas in May for ya!**

Seattle was sparkling with Christmas lights. The mall was full of sweaters, scarves, and shoppers straining with the weight of bags and bags of items. Spencer and Carly enjoyed lunch together in a restaurant. She'd invited him to come with her, which had made him feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. She hadn't set aside time just to hang out with him for a nearly a year—she'd recently become far too busy as a high school senior. He'd accepted eagerly—but now he was kind of half wishing he hadn't.

She wanted to talk about boys—_love_ and boys. There was one particular boy she was wild about—that much was obvious just the way she smiled when she said his name. He tried not to look too uncomfortable as she gushed about how much fun he was, and how sweet he was. She shyly broke the ice on the topic by asking,

"What do boys want?"

Spencer choked but before he could reply, a popular Christmas carol rang out over the hub-bub of Christmas shopping. Three notes into the tune of Silver Bells, Spencer lost his breath and slipped head first into a memory…

It was a typical nervous breakdown, they said. Happens to at least one student every semester—can't handle the pressure; Yale Law is no joke, and some just can't take it. True, he did run out of the lecture hall with crazy eyes, collapse in the spill of autumn leaves outside and scream at the sky... but it had almost nothing to do with law school. Okay it did, but not the pressure or anything, just the whole idea of it. Law meant suits, briefcases, and heartless ambition—fake smiles, lame jokes, and brunches.

It'd just occurred to Spencer that this world was not for him.

Sitting in the middle of the class with the other promising students, listening to the lecture, three things had happened very quickly.

He'd realized he could care less about Law. He'd decided he was going to keep taking notes anyway because he had to. And then his pen had stopped writing. In a bored fashion, he'd moved to the margin of the page and gave a fierce little scribble, not yet alarmed, just dealing with stupid writing utensils. The ink flowed again. He returned to his notes. The pen stopped again, but the momentum of his note taking carried on, writing three inkless words onto the page.

That time he got the message.

His breath slowed to a dead stop. Sound warped and faded around him. His eyes bore into the inkless letters carved into the paper. They sat there mocking him—technically readable, but not. His notes, but not. What he needed, but not.

It'd hit him then, the truth behind everything. If he stuck to this ten-year-plan then his future would be secure, but it wouldn't be what he needed. It would be as empty as these words.

Maybe it was lectures he'd received since he was thirteen, maybe it was his first instinct not to be rude by leaving in the middle of class, maybe it was the fear—but the first thing he tried to do after this epiphany was ignore it. He had too. He _chose_ law school, nobody was _making_ him do this…were they?

The pen still wouldn't write.

Why did he choose it?

He was getting further and further behind in his notes.

Was it because he wanted to make them proud?

It was okay, he didn't need to take notes if he just paid close attention.

…He'd have their pride but who would have his soul?

The room started closing in. He dropped the pen and ran his fingers through his hair, looked out of the window. The trees had dropped their leaves like yellow robes at their feet...

Before he knew it he was outside, screaming.

He'd just remembered something, something he should never have forgotten.

The last words his mother said to him:

"We had fun with that meatball didn't we, following our hearts? Promise you'll never stop?"

The last thing he ever said to her had been two words in an easy smile. "I promise."

He hadn't thought it would be their last conversation, and at the time, it had seemed like a very simple promise to make. She lost the battle with cancer that night, while Spencer was rocking Carly to sleep.

He'd forgotten that promise, and in doing so he'd forgotten his mother, his connection to her, himself: art. Living for it, by it, in it—he used to. When she was alive they'd painted together, and after she died, he painted on his own; a lot in the beginning and then less and less over the years, until he went to college and didn't take her brushes with him.

The knees of his jeans were beginning to absorb the moisture in the ground and his toes were cramping from being bent too long. He rolled back onto his heels and fell with a puff of air onto his rear, rested extended elbows on his knees, and focused on the ground between them; in particular a single leaf.

It was small, yellow, and seemingly the only one that had not been trampled in his little moment. All the others were crushed, stamped into the muddy ground. This one remained perfect despite the turmoil around it.

He twirled the leaf in his fingers, contemplating all that it entailed.

"Spence," a girl called as the doors slammed open.

"Dude!" that was Socko's cousin, Lawrence, close behind the girl.

Spencer stood and ran without sparing a glance in their direction.

...

"Art, huh?" Socko asked him. It was a few months later. Spencer had reappeared after seemingly dropping from the face of the planet. Back and more alive than anyone remembered him, he nodded heavily. "Yeah, I know. It's a _huge_ switch from the law!"

They were in the car, headed to Socko's Aunt Penny's house for Christmas. She was loaded and could afford massive Christmas get-togethers every year. Socko studied his friend's face. Spencer looked only half sincere about it. Socko sighed and looked back at the road. "Listen, man…this doesn't have anything to do with—"

"It's not about her," Spencer said shortly. He rarely used such a serious tone, so Socko backed off fast. Spencer shook his head. "I'm just following _my_ dreams for once."

"Is that what you told your dad?"

"Yeah," he said with a dry laugh. Socko was impressed. No one went against the Colonel; that was just how it was. Then again, it would have to be something like that to make the Colonel throw his own son out in the snow for Christmas.

"Well do me a favor and don't tell my mom about this, or she'll expect me to find my bliss," Socko said to change the subject.

Spencer shrugged. "What's wrong with being an electrician?"

Socko shrugged. "Nothing, I like it."

"Well okay."

"Okay."

They drove in silence for another minute and then Spencer asked. "Are you sure it's okay that I come along? I mean, I could just stay back at your place…"

"No, no, the more the merrier is all that Aunt Penny will say."

Spencer breathed easier and leaned back against the head rest. He shoved his hair out of his face and began to absently toy with a ring on his pinky-finger. A dude wearing jewelry was usually something Socko made fun of relentlessly, but this didn't count. Mentally taking a step back and looking at his friend's personae at that moment made the electrician smirk and shake his head; officially an artist for one day and Spencer already had the tortured look down.

Socko parked his car in the street. There were about seven other cars, a lot of them minivans. Spencer climbed out of the car and took a look at the house. It was big, three stories, and completely decked out with Christmas lights and decorations. He could hear Christmas music playing loudly from inside, accented by shouts and laughter and little running feet. Socko shut and locked his car, burying his face in his scarf as he hurried inside.

"Just tell me whenever you feel like leaving, dude," he said as he opened the door.

They were greeted by shouts from the crowd inside. Socko had like nine uncles, all of them were married, all of them had kids, and all of them were happy to see Socko and eager to learn who he'd brought this year.

The infamous Aunt Penny came forward to greet her unexpected guest. She touched his arm and said he was welcome and pointed all around the room, giving a general tour of the house, "My kitchen in there, that's the hallway there, bathroom's at the end," and she said the names of everyone in the room.

Spencer smiled at men and women who waved and the kids who shied away from the stranger. The music, he realized, was a live performance from a girl at a piano in the corner. She looked his age and was wearing short sleeves and boots that reached up over her jeans to her knees. She was playing a fast, intense Christmas carol Spencer recognized from church choir, and she was playing it with her eyes closed. When Aunt Penny saw what had captured his attention, she raised her voice to shout at the player,

"Melody, come say hello to Jr.'s friend."

The girl, Melody, opened her eyes at least, but didn't stop playing. Aunt Penny informed Spencer that Mel was Socko's cousin, the closest cousin in age. At Spencer's side, Socko, known as _Junior_ in this crowd, waved to her and then motioned to the extremely tall man beside him. "This is Spencer Shay; Spence, this is my cousin Melody Sokolik."

"Hi, so nice to meet you all," he said exuberantly. "Merry Christmas!"

She missed a note. Annoyance flashed across her face, and she put her full attention back on the song. He could tell by her expression and posture when it ended that all she wanted was do it again, this time flawlessly, but she couldn't sit there and play the same song over and over again. So she reluctantly started playing another one instead.

"Oh, I know this song!" Spencer said happily. Her eyes flew open as six feet of stranger stepped over her piano bench and got comfortable at her side. She looked at him. He smiled back, showing the appropriate amount of uncertainty that a decent person should have when invading personal space—but coupled with it was confidence that she wouldn't take offence, since it was his only means to get at the piano.

"Silver Bells," she said, because it felt like she needed to say something.

He nodded and picked up the upper half of the tune. She let him have it, interested to see what he could do. His finger-placement was childish, but he got all of the notes. She smiled at him. He smiled back. "I taught myself."

"You've got a good ear," she said, impressed. He shrugged and missed a note. They laughed but kept playing once he got it back. "Thanks. I've been practicing a lot lately."

"So you're Jr.'s friend from college?" she asked. He laughed and nodded. "Yes, but not anymore."

She was slightly confused. "You've graduated already?" she asked. He shook his head.

"Oh, no, I'm twenty-two same as Socko, I just quit last year."

"Oh," she said, smiling widely at the nickname for her cousin.

"Can I ask why?"

"Didn't want to follow Granddad's dream after all," he said, as if she was supposed to know who this granddad was and what he wanted; but she guessed that was the point. He wasn't chasing it anymore, so it didn't matter.

Silver Bells ended, and those who noticed clapped; more for Spencer's benefit than for Melody's. He had done well enough to impress everyone; though to be fair, most of it was just their pleasant surprise that he even knew the notes of a keyboard, let alone a whole Christmas song from memory.

He took his bow without getting up from the bench. Melody suspected it was because that entailed unfolding his tall frame again. Now she could take a proper look at him and did so. He wore a festive green t-shirt with red trim on the sleeve and red letters stamped across the chest that read randomly _Reindeer Love_; his jeans looked new, but his converse were so old that the soles were cracked. She could see the nature of the damage came from sitting just like he was at that moment, with both feet tucked up under the bench to give his knees room under the piano, forcing his toes to stay bent.

It was only now that she took the time to appraise his looks that she even noticed that his brown hair was quite long. Its length didn't strike her to begin with thanks to his long face and neck, but his hair was long enough to tuck behind his ears when he looked down at the keys again.

"That was fun," he said with a big smile, plucking random keys. She noticed on the pinky-finger of his right hand a silver ring, like a wedding band. Her eyes followed this ring as his hand went up one more time to comb his hair out of his face again. He had brown eyes.

"And you're amazing at it," he was saying "How long have you been playing?"

"My entire life; my mom taught me when I was three, and I just sort of fell in love with it." She laughed at her own gushy choice of words and plucked out a simple C scale. His eyes followed her fingers hungrily and he copied her. She smiled. "Good job."

"What was that song you were playing when I came in? The intense one?"

"Carol of Bells?" she asked, shocked that someone could not know that song. He laughed at her expression. "Yeah, that's the one. How does it go again?"

"Do you want the words or the tune?" she asked.

He motioned to the keys. "Any, both! I just want to see you play it!"

She started playing. His eyes followed her hands eagerly, a huge smile of childish excitement and awe spreading across his face. He bounced on the bench in joy. "This is awesome! You look so professional! Look at that, you didn't even have to look to do that!"

She laughed and faded the song out, ending on a soft note. He grinned. "I think I'm making my little sister learn to play. This is just too cool!"

"You have a little sister?"

"Carly, she's seven," he said fondly.

"Well if she's got the discipline, it's the perfect time to teach her."

"Spence," Jr. said, appearing behind them. "What are you doing?"

"Have you seen your cousin play Carol of Bells; it's amazing!"

She grinned. Junior double looked her. "What'd Aunt Penny give you this year?"

"A purse," she said with a smile. Spencer's brow wrinkled. Jr. rolled his eyes, "My aunt has to bribe her to play every year."

Spencer looked at Melody as if she had betrayed him. "…But you love doing it so much," he said. Jr.'s brow crinkled and he looked between them; possibly wondering when his best friend had found time to get to know his cousin enough to know what she loved.

She smiled and shrugged at Spencer, stroking the keys as she debated her next song. "If you're good at something, you should never do it for free."

A short laugh bubbled out of him so suddenly that it was almost a bark or a burp. He shook his head and combed all of his hair back with both hands. "Know anymore?"

"She knows all of them," Jr. said. Something passed between the two friends that Spencer hoped Melody didn't pick up on. But a second later, Jr. said in a special tone that gave it away, "_Well_, I'll see you two later then," and slipped away never to bother them again. She glanced at Spencer out of the corner of her eye, but he was grinning secretly down at the keys and didn't see.

"So, um," she said. The bench creaked under them. "Do you know any more songs?"

"Not all the way through like Silver Bells," he said. "I only learned it so I could sing it and have music." He absently turned the silver band on his finger as he spoke. "My mom loved that song."

She didn't miss the past-tense but didn't pry. She latched onto the other enlightening information. "You like to sing?"

"Christmas carols? Yes!" he said as if that had been a silly question. And he didn't seem to have volume control. She laughed. "Well, let's do Silver Bells."

She gave him some quick tips that would help them share the keyboard without getting their arms tangled up in the middle of the song. He nodded, excited again. "Great, let's do it!

They started playing and she nervously started singing but he didn't leave her singing all alone. Once she had the opening verse, he came in strong and confident, his voice an octave lower than his speaking voice. It was fluid and lovely to listen to as he crooned the chorus along with her. Then he dropped off and left her to sing the next verse, which she did with a little more gusto than she had started off with. He smiled and came back in for the chorus again. There he missed a couple of notes and sang louder until he had it back under control. It made her want to laugh and she had to fight the impulse for the rest of the song. Once it was over, she cracked up laughing, but everyone else in the house clapped and whistled loudly, startling her.

"You two sounded beautiful together!" her mother cried, coming forward to pat her head and give her a kiss. The woman greeted Spencer and asked him a few questions before Melody gave her a semi-discreet nudge and she suddenly pretended to be needed in the kitchen. Spencer smiled and laughed as he thanked her again for her parting compliments.

"So," he said, tucking his hair back behind his ear. A smile danced in the corner of his mouth. "That was a lot of fun."

"It was," she declared. "I've never played a duet before."

His eyes widened at that and his smile danced even more. "Well, maybe we'll do it a lot this year."

"Maybe," she said with a blush.

He was smiling at the keys again when someone shouted through the house.

"Okay, let's eat everybody!" one of the uncles cried.

Spencer lifted off the bench with surprising grace. He owned every inch of his frame, not like her. As she stood, she caught her knee on the piano, tripped on the leg of the bench, and then endangered everyone in reach with her flailing elbows. He dunked out of the way like her cousins, but stepped back with a huge smile.

"Wow, you're tall," he said, measuring the difference in their height with a level hand. He was maybe an inch taller, and she was slouching in her embarrassment; trying to recoil into an invisible turtle shell.

"Yeah, and I'm a clutz too."

"Your knee alright?" he asked with the same smile.

She rubbed it absently, fighting a second blush. "Yeah, it's used to it."

He chuckled. "I used to crack my elbow all the time."

"How did you stop?"

"I trained my body like a ninja by wrapping myself up in my father's neck ties so that I couldn't move my elbows too far out," he said, demonstrating. She laughed before she realized he was serious. Then she laughed harder. He was smiling in a pleased way.

"Hey Spence, man, oh my God!" Lawrence cried as he walked past. "I thought you killed yourself or something!"

Spencer smirked. "Hi Lawrence, what's up?"

"What happened in school man? You just disappeared!"

Spencer shrugged. "I dropped out. Not my thing."

"Well, that's cool," Lawrence said. His eyes slid to Melody, who was still laughing. He winked at Spencer. "Have fun with that one," he pointed at his cousin. "She'll pretend otherwise, but she's crazy."

"Shut up Lawry!"

The Sockolik cousins started in on each other, poking one another and name calling all in good fun.

He never knew Christmas was so much fun. Since he was raised half Jewish half Christian, he _had_ of course celebrated Christmas before, but it was never given this much…everything. The Sokolik house was thrumming with such an amazing energy—the excitement, joy, heck even boredom—of an entire family that did this kind of thing only once a year, that saved up all of their stories for the holiday, when they would all be together to tell them, to share in everything that was Christmas.

His family never had that. He was told he was lucky for getting two holidays, but that only divided the merriment. By Christmas, they were tired of the parties, of the relatives, of the food. He knew before he was finished eating at the Sokolik Christmas dinner that he was raising his children under one flag, just so that this energy could be bottled up, so that they could maybe save a little of it to get through the hard stuff. He knew he could have used a little storage this year. Being there was the first time he felt really alive since he'd heard his mother was dying.

Socko and his family were a blast. Spencer didn't ever remember having so much fun. He didn't know if it had to do with the newfound freedom in his future plans, or if was just the Sokolik way, but this was the Christmas he would never forget.

All of the younger cousins were rambunctious after dinner, and the indoors was turning into a mad-house as all the grown Sokolik men got to revisit their childhood with the younger Sokolik children and all the new Christmas toys. Mel had gotten the purse plus some silver earrings. Always prepared for everything, Aunt Penny had four white-elephant gifts to give surprise guests, and Spencer's _ennie-meenie-mynie-mo_ had gotten him a Christmas-tree ornament made of glass, shaped into a snowflake; a picture could be fit into the center.

To escape the noise, Spencer wandered outside onto the deck, and to his delight, she followed him.

The porch still had dried leaves on it, and snow sat in every shadow. The pool in the middle of the deck was empty, and a few leaves and snow littered the circular floor. It was warm in direct sunlight, so she stepped out of the house without a coat. He was in a dark green army fatigue jacket that had the name Shay printed across the breast pocket, along with a string of numbers.

"Are you in the military?"

"Nope," he said. "But my dad is, and so was my granddad."

She nodded, some comprehension lifting her eyebrows.

"So are you spending Christmas break with Junior or…?"

He looked down into the empty pool. "Kinda yeah…I'm following my bliss."

"What's that mean?"

"Not being a lawyer."

"That's it?"

"Well that and art."

"Painting?"

He shrugged. "Painting, music, drama…I don't know yet."

"Cool," she said. "Wanna go for a walk?"

"So tell me about yourself," she said as their old shoes crunched through the snow of the backyard. They were headed for a narrow road leading toward a barn at the far end of a field. Some horses were running to keep warm.

Spencer blew into his hands and shoved them back into his pockets. "I'm half-jewish," he said randomly.

"Really?" she asked. "Cool... Mom's side or dad's side?"

"Mom's. She's dead." Spencer didn't know why he was spouting out the Big Stuff. She'd only been looking for the little things—his favorite foods, his hobbies, why he was friends with Socko. She didn't seem intimidated though—in fact she was clearly interested. "It was cancer," he supplied.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

"Do you do Hanukah?"

"Sometimes. Used to every year, but my dad is—well, he sorta left after she passed and Granddad never thought we should do it in the first place, so..."

Her eyebrows rose. Spencer was aware of how the vague description made his father look, but at the moment he really didn't care. And it didn't matter. Plus it was kinda of true. He wasn't around anymore, except for major holidays. And Hanukah somehow never made that cut.

They walked a few paces in crunching silence. Spencer pulled the hood of his jacket into place and kept talking. "Mom got me into art you know. It was her thing, and when she got sick it sort of became our thing…"

"That's sweet," she said smiling. Spencer liked the way her lips got pinker the tighter as they stretched in a smile. They matched the pink tip of her cold nose. Without thinking about it, he reached out and tweaked it. She laughed in surprise, bit her lip and looked down at her moving feet. Spencer chuckled and returned his hand to his pocket. A step later, he slipped in some ice and fell hard, limbs flaing. She gasped as he caught himself painfully on a knee and a wrist. In searing pain, he lowered himself to the ground and cried out to the heavens,

"Ice? WHY! Oh God! WHY?"

"Are you okay?" she asked urgently, leaning over him. Spencer held his knee, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he continued to cry out,

"_What did I ever do to you_? Stupid ice!" He was putting it on, for her benefit. She wasn't buying it as much as he'd hoped. She was laughing instead.

"Spencer," she said, unable to keep a giggle from her voice. He stopped his shouting and opened his eyes, looked right up into hers. She tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled down at him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just a little cold…and wet." His eyebrows got a little wavy as his voice lowered to a playful seductive tone, "Care to join me down here? It's freezing."

She giggled again and offered her hand. He climbed to his feet but didn't let go of her fingers. "Thanks," he said, using his free hand to comb all of his hair away from his face. They resumed their walk. He gestured urgently to the ground when she took her first step. "Watch out for the ice!" He needn't worry, she had already stepped deftly over it, but he paid closer attention to the ground after that.

"Tell me more," she said.

Something big and solid that had been wriggling around suddenly turned over in his chest and he felt the repercussions in his stomach like butterflies. He looked at this girl, just one of Socko's many cousins but now suddenly someone who could be the world to him, and suddenly he wanted to tell her everything, even the little stuff. He didn't know where to start. He shrugged. "I don't know….ask me stuff."

"Okay," she took a deep breath and thought about it. A wicked grin painted her lips. "Have you ever…been with someone?" she asked delicately. So she liked The Big Stuff.

He blushed profusely and shook his head. "Yeah….once or twice," he said, inflating numbers with that suave voice he'd used before while lying in the snow. "Why are you offering?"

She smiled coyly. "Maybe."

He felt all tingly and was deciding just how to kiss her when she took a deep breath. It was a world weary sigh, the kind of noises Spencer had often made while stuck in Yale. Suddenly he wanted to ask the questions, not answer them.

"You're turn."

She looked away for a few steps, then down at her feet as she thought about it. "Well, there's not much..."

"Gotta be somethiing," he said. Because he could see it in her face. A moment later she blurted it out.

"I'm not Socko's cousin."

"What?"

"I'm his sister."

"_What_?"

"His mom has no idea, but Jr. and I figured it out a few years ago."

_"You're dad had an affair with your aunt_?"

"Don't say it like that, it sounds like incest. My dad slept with his brother's wife."

"Socko never told me!"

"It's a big fat secret. We're not supposed to tell anyone."

"You told me."

"Yeah, I did."

They were at the end of the road, in front of the big barn. It looked new. Spencer wandered closer to have a look. Inside was full of hay and the strong smell of animals. He kicked the door and returned to the road. Melody hadn't ventured into the barn's snowy shadow. They stood for a moment looking back up the road toward the house. It sat looking full of light and merriment among the trees on the hill. The horses had stopped running and were grazing in what grass was sticking out of the white patches.

"Thanks for telling me. I know creepy incest-y skeletons in the closet aren't things people can just say, you know?"

She swatted at him, he guarded himself with his elbows, snickering. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just mad because it means you're out-of-bounds now."

"Out-of-bounds?"

"Yeah, dudes can't hook up with their buddy's sisters. It's not cool."

She blushed. Now her cheeks matched her nose. He reached out and stroked one, found it ice cold and realized she wasn't wearing a jacket. He shrugged his off immediately. "Put this on," he said.

"I'm fine," she said with a smile.

He draped it around her shoulders. "It's fair. I got it the first half of the trip, now you get it. Let's go back."

He started walking because _man alive_ it was cold outside, he didn't know how she'd managed this far without chattering teeth. She tucked her hair behind her ears again and hurried to follow him.

"So you've only been with one girl?" she asked, reverting suddenly back to the topic of his score. Spencer lost all of his breath in one short laugh. "Well... I've found that not having a stable plan for the future scares all the good ones away."

"Well it doesn't scare me. Does that make me bad?"

Spencer looked long and hard at her as they walked. He was really starting to like these brave, bold moments of hers. Her shyness was wearing off. She said things that were on her mind, sometimes without thinking. Not only was this classic Socko material (this whole family was nuts) but it was better because it was flirty and female and _hot_.

"That makes yooooou," he said drawing out the last word as he thought about it for a second, "the first good thing about this Christmas."

She laughed, flushed. "Good…" she said, "because you're also the first good thing about this Christmas."

"Not counting the purse right?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot about the purse," she said. "I guess you're second best," she said with a great show of sympathy. Spencer laughed and reached for her hand. Their fingers were laced for the rest of the trip back.

He sketched her once they were back inside in the warmth and she asked to see some skills.

The picture was now stuck to the refrigerator for everyone to see, and the artist and subject were nowhere to be seen. Thanks to a little help from Socko, Spencer and Melody slipped upstairs to the out-of-bounds area. Aunt Penny let the kids run rampart through the first two floors, but the third floor was off limits. This was her bedroom, kids bedrooms, and an office with a lot of important stuff inside it.

It was eerily quiet up here. The thick white carpet absorbed every foot step. A ceiling fan on low drowned out the distant sounds of rambunctious Sockolik children below the floor. Spencer had a look in each room before catching Melody in the hallway and laying the first kiss on her. She broke the kiss to smile wickedly at him, bumped her nose—no longer pink from cold—against his. He smiled back.

The fact of the matter was he would have kissed her like that down stairs, in front of everyone. He wasn't shy like that, but she was. He'd seen it the moment he presented the drawing he'd done of her—the kiss she was just bursting to give him. He'd tried to take it first there in the living room with a bunch of gremlins running around him, then again in the kitchen, where they were alone every five seconds while Aunt Penny came in and out getting dishes to put in the washer, and then again on the staircase, where anyone could be expected to appear, top or bottom. She'd held him off in all places, until they had stolen away up here.

Spencer decided he really liked the third floor of Aunt Penny's place.

They looked into each other's eyes, grinned some more, and he spoke.

"We're not going to get in trouble for being up here are we?"

She shook her head. "Not if we don't get caught."

A loud scream from downstairs drew their attention. It sounded like a bit of a commotion down there. She laughed and rolled her eyes. Spencer just studied her face with a special smile, still holding her elbows from the kiss.

"Should we go back down there?"

"After you paid Junior a whole dollar to let us up here?" she asked. Spencer was embarrassed, he thought he'd been pretty smooth with the exchange. She laughed and shook her head, pulling him closer. "Might as well get our money's worth."

They kissed for a few minutes longer, until they heard someone on the stairs.

She broke the kiss with a loud wet smack and they jumped apart. Aunt Penny found them and smiled knowingly. "Lil' Trip fell down the stairs, so I've put them all off limits to little ones. All of you have to play on the ground floor now."

"What?"

"We do? So unfair!"

Aunt Penny chuckled and left before it became too obvious that they weren't going to follow her. Spencer took a deep breath of logic. This was Christmas, a stranger's house, with a cousin of Socko's he barely knew. It was wrong….

But then Melody was kissing him again, and she tasted like gingerbread and she was soft in all the right places—and yeah she was totally out-of-bounds, and Socko would punch his lights out when he heard, but right now Spencer so didn't care. It really wasn't Socko's business—so long as this didn't lead to anything life changing, like another illegitimate Sockolick child.

She voiced a similar concern at a crucial junction in the impassioned events that followed, but he had the bases covered; there was nothing to worry about. It had certainly not been her plan when she'd led him up the third staircase, but somewhere between all the kisses she just stopped caring where he put his hands, and she wanted to feel more of him in return.

His kisses were full of hot breath that tasted deliciously like the candy cane he'd eaten as he worked on the beautiful portrait he'd drawn for her. She'd told him no one had ever asked to draw her before. And she'd insisted after seeing it that she wasn't _that_ beautiful, that he'd done something, she hadn't been able to pin-point it exactly, but she was sure he had altered something in her features to make her look like a babe. He'd told her it was just how she looked, and after that she wasn't going to let him get away without knowing her gratitude.

But she probably hadn't meant to show _that_ much gratitude. It just sort of happened. One minute they were finding deeper and deeper kisses, and his hands were finding the skin under her shirt while hers were rearranging every hair on his head, and the next, they were in a room with bunk beds, finding that neither was big enough for two grownups.

In an attempt to exist the room, the door somehow closed and he pressed her against it, and they both forgot the need to get it back open because a few buttons had been worked open and things were in business.

It wasn't planned, it wasn't stopped, and it was never forgotten.

He confided in her as they slipped back down stairs that it was the best in his experience, and that made her blush so deeply she was still red when they reached the ground floor, their fingers laced once again. His heart was pounding.

He wanted to hold onto the memory but couldn't—way too awkward with her whole family around. They weren't mind readers but they weren't stupid. He tried to stop smiling like a goof and could see that she was trying too and failing as well. She laughed and put her forehead on his shoulder. He squeezed her fingers.

Aunt Penny was shouting for everyone to get together in front of the tree for the annual picture. Spencer started to move in the opposite direction but Socko got him in a half Nelson and told him in a special tone that he had _better_ join the family.

One of Socko's older cousins thought it neccassry to say something silly at the last minute to make everyone smile.

"Say Merry Sniffmas!"

The picture was taken; a lovely portrait of all the Sockolik men lined up in the back, their wives, daughters and children kneeling in the front. Spencer was sitting at the end of the row, his finger laced with Melody's, their heads together like angels, their noses wrinkled with laughter.

Carly would come to know the picture well, but not all of it, just a young couple's face cut out to fit into the center of a glass snowflake ornament on one of his highly praised Christmas sculptures.

"Spen-cerrrr!" Carly sang, waving a hand in front of his face. He came straight back to the present just in time to recall that Carly had asked him a question about what boys wanted.

He put down his corndog, put his elbow on the table and pointed at her. "Boys want to do it _all the time_. So promise me that when you do sleep with someone, Carls, you'll make sure it's someone you _really_ like and you'll make sure the memory is special because even after the relationship is over, he'll be with you for the rest of your life."

Carly blushed fiercely, looked down, tucked hair behind her ear. "Um—I just asked you if boys like hats or scarves."

Slightly embarrassed, Spencer mumbled an apology and finished his corndog. Silver Bells continued to play on throughout the mall, and he kicked back in his plastic chair to listen.

"Well…" he said, with a goofy smile on his lips. "I can't speak for all boys, but I think Gibby prefers scarves."

"But he's so cute in hats."

"Get him both, then." He really didn't care.

"It's really too bad that you helped Sam get me banned from the Frozen Oval," she said with a sigh. "I would love to go ice skating with him."

"They banned me and Sam not you."

"They banned 'the whole party', that's why they took our photos!"

"Wear a hat and scarf—they'll never recognize you." He had his head tilted back and his eyes closed.

"…Spence?"

"Yup?"

"Do you really mean it—the thing about them staying with you?"

"It's absolutely true. So make it count, Carls. Something real."

"Okay."

**Fin.**


End file.
